Nigella Lawson says having her private life aired in court was 'mortifying'
but 'I don't like self pity'

Nigella Lawson has described her court ordeal as "mortifying" but said she had "eaten a lot of chocolate" since then and no longer wants to dwell on her experience.

Appearing on live television for the first time since admitting to taking cocaine and cannabis, Miss Lawson she did not approve of "self pity" and only regretted that she had not been able to protect her children from being dragged into the fraud trial of two former aides.

The 53-year-old appeared on Good Morning America to promote the US television show The Taste, on which she is a judge.

Although she and her three fellow judges were there to talk about food, Miss Lawson was immediately asked if she felt as though she had been the one on trial when she was called to give evidence against Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo.

"I did," she replied. Asked what it was like to spend two days in the witness box, she said: "I can't really remember exactly because you're so focused on answering the questions to the best of your ability that actually you don't really have an enormous awareness of yourself. Maybe that's a good thing.

"My only desire really was to protect my children as much as possible which, alas, I couldn't always do. Actually since then I've eaten a lot of chocolate, had a very good Christmas and am into the New Year."

Pressed on how it had been to have her personal life picked over in court, she said: "To have not only your private life but distortions of your private life put on display is mortifying but there are people going through an awful lot worse and to dwell on any of it would be self pity and I don't like to do that.

"It's one of the niceties of the English legal system that you're not allowed any counsel if you're a witness but maybe that will change, maybe that's good."

Good Morning America is made by ABC, the same network that makes The Taste, so it was perhaps unsurprising that Miss Lawson was not asked any questions about her drug use.

The breakfast programme is mainly watched by women, and particularly mothers, making it the perfect platform for Miss Lawson to appeal to her core audience.

The second series of The Taste, the vehicle which Miss Lawson is using to break into the American market, begins this week on US television.

Until now Miss Lawson's only public comments about her gruelling spell in the witness box at Isleworth Crown Court in west London last month had come in a written statement released after the Grillo sisters were cleared of fraud.

In it, she described her court experience as "deeply disturbing" and said claims that she had been a habitual drug user had become a "ridiculous sideshow" which made it impossible for the jury to focus on the fraud allegations.

She said she had been the victim of a "sustained background campaign deliberately designed to destroy my reputation" and in court she had been "maliciously vilified".

She also complained that her children were subjected to "extreme allegations in court without any real protection", something for which she could not "forgive the court process".

The Grillo sisters, who worked for Miss Lawson for more than 10 years, later sold their story to the Sun newspaper, making further claims about Miss Lawson's behaviour, including a suggestion that she hired caterers to cook Christmas dinner for her family.